Wichita State University's Department of History will host a special presentation, "150 Years -- 1864-2014 -- Sherman's March to the Sea," by guest speaker Professor Wendy Hamand Venet of Georgia State University, at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 25, in Hubbard Hall, Room 208. The event is free and open to the public.

Venet is an established author and historian whose work focuses on 19th century American history, women and abolition.

She is a frequently sought speaker about the Civil War, on PBS and NPR as well as at the Jimmy Carter Center and other civic organizations. She also helped conceptualize exhibits for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library in Springfield, Ill., which opened in 2005.

Venet's work on Civil War Atlanta began in 2006 when she encountered the diary of Samuel P. Richards, a bookstore owner in the city’s central business district during the war. She published an annotated version of the diary in 2009, and became convinced of the rich sources available for a book about the Atlanta homefront in the Civil War.

That project is Venet’s latest book, "A Changing Wind: Commerce and Conflict in Civil War Atlanta," which the author will discuss in her talk at Wichita State.

The book brings to life the personal stories of Atlanta's citizens – black and white, free and slave, wealthy and ordinary – as war and renewal shape the city and history around them. The work is drawn from historic documents and illuminates the tension behind the Confederate legacy, the quiet role of women during the war and how Southern loyalists transformed the narrative of their defeat to justify their actions.

Venet is also the author of "Neither Ballots nor Bullets: Women Abolitionists and the Civil War" and "A Strong-Minded Woman: The Life of Mary Livermore."

While in Wichita, Venet will film an episode of "Issues in History," a new program produced by WSU-TV 13 that will be broadcast in October and November. Her visit to Wichita State is sponsored by the Department of History, the Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Office of the Vice President of Academic Affairs.

The event is free and open to the public.